Coping is used around the top edge of swimming pool walls to provide an attractive interface between the pool walls and a surrounding deck. Materials from which swimming pool copings are made include tile, aluminum, and resin. The aluminum and resin copings can also be shaped to provide channels for supporting vinyl liners over structural walls of the pool. However, the resin material is often preferred over the aluminum material because paint is easily chipped from the aluminum copings, leaving a permanently marred appearance. In contrast, the resin copings resist denting and do not have to be painted.
Nevertheless, it has been necessary to use preformed aluminum coping on curved pool walls because available resin copings cannot be bent to match the desired curvatures. The preformed aluminum copings add considerable inventory to pool manufacturers, because different shaped copings are required for each different curve of the pool walls, including each different length of the same curvature. Attempts to solve this problem have included applying heat to the resin copings to encourage them to bend, but the results have not been satisfactory. The heated resin coatings tend to kink when bent.